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are considered the most valuable are transcriptions of foreign 
words occurring in the papyri and on the monuments of this 
period; while the words themselves, or transcriptions of them 
into Hebrew letters, are preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
and in many cases transcriptions into Greek letters are also 
met with. As the alphabet, which, we previously found, 
was formed from transcriptions of Greek and Roman proper 
names into Egyptian characters made in the later ages, so it 
is by similar transcription, made in the time and at the place 
chosen for a standard, that this alphabet must be corrected and 
completed. Transcriptions of Egyptian words into Hebrew 
letters are a useful auxiliary to the other kind of transcrip- 
tions, especially when they contain the peculiar Hebrew let- 
ters which represent sounds unknown to the Greeks, Against 
these, however, the objection lies, that they probably repre- 
sent the pronunciation of Lower Egypt, which may have dif- 
fered from that of Thebes. The transcription of Egyptian 
words into Greek characters in Theban papyri of the Ptole- 
maic period, and in the names of kings, are also to be taken 
into consideration, chiefly, however, to supply the proper 
sounds of those letters, the Hebrew representative of which 
were ambiguous; the Maronetic points, by which a certain 
value was affixed to these letters, being shewn to be of no 
authority. In the case of S and SH, where the two sounds 
are expressed by the same letters in Greek as well as in 
Hebrew, we are compelled to seek a distinction in the Coptic 
equivalents of the ancient Egyptian words. It is maintained, 
however, that, owing to the Coptic representing the Egyptian 
language in its latest form, when many words had been cor- 
rupted, it should not be admitted as evidence in opposition to 
clear indications of the powers of the letters found in ancient 
transcriptions. Interchanges of letters, if habitually made in 
texts of the standard period, are admitted to be good evidence 
of the identity in power of the letters interchanged. But it is 
observed that the number of letters thus exchanged is very 
